Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma has stirred up a debate regarding how Bollywood stars handle the viral spread of offensive AI-morphed content. Following the circulation of a manipulated video featuring Janhvi Kapoor from her recent Telugu debut film Devara: Part 1, several high-profile names including Jr NTR and Vijay Deverakonda took to social media to voice their outrage. However, Varma argues that these public condemnations have backfired, inadvertently driving more traffic to the illicit material rather than curbing its reach.
In a series of posts on X, Varma suggested that by reacting so vocally, celebrities have essentially acted as unintended promoters for the objectionable content. He stated that the collective response only succeeded in publicizing the link to millions of people. According to the filmmaker, the smarter approach would have been to focus energy on identifying and catching the perpetrator behind the digital abuse rather than drawing extra attention to the victim’s identity and the offensive material itself, which he noted is a crime in its own right.
Prior to Varma’s critique, Jr NTR had publicly condemned the video as a disgusting and sick display of technology being used for harassment. The actor emphasized that such actions are shameful in a culture that holds women in high regard and warned that strict legal action would be pursued against those responsible for creating and sharing the file. The song Chuttamalle, which was the focus of the morphed video, has been a major highlight of the film, featuring music by Anirudh Ravichander and vocals by Shilpa Rao.